SIR RICHARD BRANSON steps nervously through the aircraft door and out onto the
wing.
He is dressed in an American football shirt and has a gridiron helmet tucked
under his arm. Behind him are two cheerleaders, and in front a gaggle of
photographers eager for a snap of him cavorting with the women.
But the wing is a sheet of ice, the plane having just landed in Chicago after
flying from London. And his shoulder hurts – he landed awkwardly on it when
he fell off a quad-bike in the Pyrenees the week before.
Branson remembers seeing a soldier fall off the wing of a plane in Basra, and
his cries of pain after he landed.
He edges cautiously up the wing towards the cameras, keeping close to the bulk
of the fuselage and poses gingerly with the girls.
Sometimes being a billionaire with your own airline, private island and
rock-star lifestyle is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Ranked No 11 in this week’s Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune estimated at
£3.1 billion, Branson spent last week doing what he has always done – using
his personal pulling-power to boost the Virgin brand.
It was Virgin Atlantic’s “inaugural” flight from Heathrow to Chicago, an
occasion with a sense of déjà vu. Virgin actually first flew to Chicago in 1999,
but dropped the route after the September 11 terrorist attacks. A more
youthful-looking Branson did similar tricks for the cameras first time round.
He is 57 in two months’ time, but despite the years of shameless publicity
stunts, he told The Sunday Times he would not be taking a back seat. “I’ll
never retire, because I never see myself as working. I have a fantastic way
of life.”
He hopes his 21-year-old son, Sam, may follow in his footsteps. “If I could
persuade my son one day to get involved then we might have a younger face in
front of the cameras,” he said.
His endurance as the public face of Virgin is slightly at odds with the
structure of the group. Branson’s day-to-day involvement with the various
businesses – the empire stretches from railways to telecoms to airlines
with plenty more deadend ventures having been discarded along the way –
is less all-encompassing than it was in the early years, when he was a music
entrepreneur trying to make it in transatlantic air travel.
“I like to think I’ve done my bit in putting Virgin on the map as a brand, but
I don’t think I’m a necessity,” he said.
Despite Branson’s unhappy early experience of public markets – he
floated Virgin Group in 1986, only to buy it back in 1988 – Virgin is
even making progress in selling shares in its companies to outside investors
by listing them on stock exchanges.
Virgin Media, the telecoms group embroiled in a row with Sky over its
withdrawal of channels from Virgin’s cable TV service, is quoted in New York
and London, with Branson holding an 11% stake.
Analysts believe that Virgin Active, a gym chain, and Virgin Mobile in America
could be the next candidates for flotation.
The row with Sky has been Branson’s most public fight in Britain for some
years. As well as a scrap over Sky programmes appearing on Virgin TV, Virgin
Media’s plans to buy ITV were thwarted last year when Sky swooped to take a
17.9% stake in the British broadcaster.
Last week Ofcom, the media regulator, and the Office of Fair Trading told
ministers they thought Sky’s investment raised concerns. The government will
announce whether the deal will be referred to the Competition Commission
around the end of the month. If Sky is forced to sell, Virgin Media could
again bid for ITV. News Corporation, the ultimate owner of The Sunday Times,
has a 39.1% stake in Sky.
Branson is aware his personal style might not be best suited to quoted
companies. “I think we’ve got better at dealing with life in the public
markets by keeping me well clear and finding good chairmen and chief
executives – and by me keeping my mouth shut so I don’t put my foot in
it at sensitive times,” he said.
While more Virgin companies could come to market in the next few years, he
said, they were not likely to include Virgin Atlantic. Branson sold a 49%
stake in the airline to Singapore Airlines in 2000 for £600m, and clearly
does not want to lose control of the company that brought him to a global
audience.
“It’s hard to say it will always remain private, because there is no such
thing as always, but I think it’s more likely than not that the airline will
stay private.”
So if he is no longer a necessity for Virgin, why does he keep climbing on
aeroplane wings and hamming it up for the cam-eras? “Well . . . because it’s
expected of me, basically.
“People work enormously hard to make Virgin companies a success, so the least
I can do is help put these companies on the map and give them a chance. And
it’s not such a chore to go out on an aircraft wing with four beautiful
women.”
But watching Branson in Chicago makes you wonder whether his image – and
work rate – is perhaps more central to the brand than he would have us
believe, and question what will happen to Virgin when he is no longer
around. He devotes a huge amount of time and energy to publicity in general
and the media in particular, underlining their importance to his empire.
His schedule is frantic. On Tuesday (slightly hung over after a night at the
House of Blues with guests from the flight), Branson hosted a press
conference at Chicago’s Museum of Science.
Alongside him was Jim Mc-Nerney, chief executive of Boeing. They said Virgin
would buy 15 of Boeing’s new 787 planes, with options for a further 28. The
two companies also said they would form an alliance with General Electric
(GE) to work on the use of biofuels for aero engines.
The order was at odds with Branson’s previous insistence that Virgin would use
only four-engined aircraft for long-haul flights, a motto that was until
recently emblazoned on the side of its aeroplanes. The 787 has two. Branson
smoothed over the change in position. “The world has moved on. The
environment has become the biggest issue facing the world. Twin-engined
planes normally use less fuel than those with four and we have decided to
move with the world,” he said.
After the conference, complete with the normal Virgin loud music and mawkish
videos, Branson sat for two-and-a-half hours through a barrage of TV
interviews. Then more interviews with individual reporters, a short rest
back at the hotel, more interviews, and then off to a grand launch party at
a former power station converted into a trendy party venue.
Hundreds of the great and good of Chicago business turned up and all of them,
it seemed, wanted a piece of Branson.
As Heather Small sang in the background, they queued up to shake Branson’s
hand and grab him for group pictures.
“I always say Richard is the only rock star that can’t sing,” said one of his
aides.
“I can’t really imagine anyone else doing this for Virgin . . . the business
is all about the brand, and the brand is all about him,” said one Boeing
executive.
Later in the evening it was off to Toronto, pausing first to say goodbye to
his father, Ted, and his mother, Eve, who had come along on the Chicago
trip. Branson was in Canada to help launch a campaign to persuade the public
to turn off unneeded appliances. From there he flew to Baffin Island to
start a three-week Arctic crossing on dog sledges with son Sam.
It all fits in with Branson’s latest plan to give a green tinge to everything
Virgin does – backed by a pledge made in September last year to invest
£1.6 billion in profits and dividends over the next decade into
alternative-energy research and production.
Branson is a relatively recent convert to environmentalism. He had been
dubious after reading The Skeptical Environmentalist, a book from
climate-change debunker Bjørn Lomborg. “That put me on the wrong path. Then
I read The Weathermakers [by Tim Flannery], and Al Gore came to see me in my
house in London. I had a two-hour lecture from him before his film [An
Inconvenient Truth] came out.”
Branson’s willingness to shout about climate change will certainly not do any
harm to his company’s prospects of making money from the trend.
“Because of my pledge [of profits going to environmental businesses] I suspect
that every great idea in this sector comes to us.”
The group is looking at biofuels – it has already invested in ethanol
production in California – and wind and solar power. It has not yet
investigated nuclear, but Branson is a firm supporter.
Ever the entrepreneur, Branson can see an opportunity for another of his
businesses, Virgin Galactic, which is planning space-tourism flights.
“The biggest problem with nuclear power is knowing how to deal with the waste.
Maybe if our space programme gets going in the way we hope it will we could
send it off into the sun ...”
